Three people arrested while protesting Customs and Border Patrol recruiters at Ohio State University

Three people were arrested by Ohio State Police while protesting U.S. Customs and Border Patrol recruiters at an annual Ohio State University ​​career fair on Tuesday. 

More than 50 people, mostly students, protested the career fair, which was held inside a ballroom at the Ohio Union. 

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security oversees both Customs and Border Patrol as well as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but they are different agencies.

Customs and Border Patrol focuses on immigration at the border while ICE, which was not present at the career fair, enforces immigration law throughout the country. 

A protester holding a “DHS off campus” sign was arrested inside the career fair in front of the Customs and Border Patrol booth and two people gathered outside the ballroom were arrested. 

Two of the people arrested were Ohio State students and the other person was an Ohio State intermittent staff member, Ohio State University Spokesperson Dan Hedman said. Ohio State has not released the names of those arrested. 

“Three individuals were arrested for criminal trespass, following multiple warnings, after disrupting a career fair event inside the Ohio Union and violating university space standards,” Hedman said in an email. 

After interacting with the protesters, the Customs and Border Patrol recruiters left the career fair about 30 minutes after it started. The career fair, which had more than 150 public and private sector employers, lasted four hours Tuesday afternoon.

Dozens of protesters remained congregated for about thirty minutes outside the ballroom after the Customs and Border Patrol recruiters left and Ohio State senior Jineen Musa encouraged protesters to leave. 

“We achieved what we came out here to do,” said Musa, who is also an organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine. 

“Our purpose in being out here today was to have (CBP) removed from the career fair,” she told the Capital Journal. “That’s to say they left in cowardice. If folks autonomously didn’t stage this protest, they would not have left.” 

Lillian Chesak, a junior at Ohio State, said she protested because she has family that are immigrants. 

“Everybody’s scared,” she said. “It’s not great.”

Customs and Border Patrol has attended the Ohio State career fair for several years, said Ohio State Spokesman Ben Johnson. 

This protest comes a month after more than 280 people in central Ohio were detained by ICE in one week during Operation Buckeye, which ICE launched from Dec. 16-21.

Ohio Immigrant Alliance reported last month that at least 214 people detained were in detention as of Dec. 24. Ninety-three percent were men and 80% appear to be Latino, according to a report from the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. 

An ICE officer shot and killed 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis earlier this month. Good was a U.S. citizen who, according to reports, was operating as a “legal observer.” 

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